Everything Vegas

Sometimes I’m not the smartest beer in the 6 pack. I was (am) going to post info that Harrah’s Total Rewards Magazine is now available online. While, I was looking through the page I noticed that all of the contact and privacy information pointed to Harrah’s. I also read the site for the first time where it states the following:

Welcome to the official blog of the Pulse of Vegas casino-resort destinations: Caesars Palace, Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, Bally’s, Flamingo, Harrah’s, Imperial Palace, Paris, Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall and O’Sheas. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the individual contributors, and not necessarily those of Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc.

It’s kind of tricky that the blog is run separate from harrahs.com, but the disclosure that this is all Harrah’s is nice to see. I’m not a member of the internet police. I just look for useful information.

Sure the blog will be promoting Harrah’s properties with only positive information, but since they are not hiding the source I know how to take the information.

The tough talkin politicians of Clark County are taking aim at one of the core groups that slow down people movement on the Las Vegas Strip – porn peddlers aka porn slappers aka card snappers.

“You can’t restrict those you don’t like and allow those you do, even in a town that sometimes thinks that the Constitution only applies to certain industries,” he (Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the ACLU of Nevada) said. “We’re not talking about passing out handbills in front of your home. We’re talking about the Las Vegas Strip — you know, Sin City … ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.’ Not my words, the government’s words.”

I don’t know anybody that likes these dudes trying to push hookers and strip clubs on them while walking up or down the strip. They must prove fruitful for someone because they are still there.

I grew up in New York City and have learned how to easily avoid people in my way. However, on my last trip to Vegas I was slowed by an inundation of these guys while walking the strip. I was also slowed by old people, tourists and kids. If Clark County can get rid of all four of those groups it would be much easier to navigate the strip.

As I mentioned yesterday my stay at Planet Hollywood was a tale of two rooms. After walking around and taking pictures of dirty room 1, I went back downstairs to check in to inform them about the room. Without question and before I could list off all of the dirty items I had a new room. I think the old man in the scooter yelling about his stay helped me get a nice room. 🙂

I’m pretty sure I was upgraded to a resort room, which I’ll call “Room 2.” This room was MUCH larger and thankfully cleaner. There was ample room and options for me to charge my iPhone. I chose the work area as my charging station.

You can see how big the room is by turning around from the work area. The TV and wall unit was on the opposite wall with the bed set to the right. This was a slightly awkward angle to watch TV, but it wasn’t too bad.

There were two big comfy chairs and a table to the left side of the room. I spent most of my time in the room in one of the chairs.

﻿I may have passed out in the chair after my 3rd tall Grey Goose and Soda, which was proceeded by two drinks in the Diamond Lounge.

In addition to my stay at Palazzo, I took a night to explore Planet Hollywood. I love the casino, but haven’t stayed there in a few years. I had similar offers to stay at each casino but after your votes I decided to make my home at Palazzo.

My stay at Planet Hollywood was a tale of two rooms. Check in was packed. It’s a small area, but there seemed to be hundreds of people. Luckily for me there was a fast quiet room for diamond total rewards members to check in.

In minutes I received my keys to my first room. I’m going to guess I had a basic “Hollywood Hip” room, but I’m not sure so I’ll just call it “Room 1.”

Room one wasn’t cleaned from the previous guests and the TV didn’t work. Additionally, the room was one of the smallest I’ve seen in Vegas. I can’t imagine how two queen beds could fit in this space and I don’t know that I want to find out. Of course, I love the casino so I’ll fight with myself about this in the future.

My trusty iPhone charger was the only item that made the trip down the strip with me. I figured that I’d wake up and head right over to Palazzo whenever I woke up the next day.

Unfortunately, the way the room was laid out there was no obvious place to set my phone for a charge outside of the bathroom. The work space was a little tight and just about up against the bed. It’s not easy to see, but there’s a half finished iced coffee by the lamp.

One nice feature is that each room had a newspaper delivered each morning. The night/morning I stayed at Planet Hollywood I ran into delivery.

The bed itself looked nice. The bed had cream coverings with dark trim. I didn’t bother trying out the mattress or coverings, but at least it looked good.

I was standing next to an awkwardly placed chair when I took the picture above. This was pretty much the only place there was room for a sitting area in the room. This was the only place someone could sit and watch TV if the TV worked. The TV didn’t work. Leftover item #2, a Mountain Dew bottle, is to the left of the TV.

Looking the other direction from the chair was the view outside. The room had a nice view of the pool. The pool area isn’t very big, but it looks nice.

This was a return to Palazzo for me. Even though I spent one night at Planet Hollywood my main home casino this trip was Palazzo.

I had a good time at Palazzo in December and wanted to relax a little on this trip. The casino at Palazzo never got too crazy and the environment, in general, was pretty chill so it would make for a nice place to stay.

I also had an offer I couldn’t refuse of three comp nights. It would be hard to say no. The rooms are large and comfortable. Perfect to get away in.

Once again my room/suite didn’t disappoint. It was clean when I arrived and cleaned daily. All furnishings were in tip top condition.

I tried the “$20 trick” for the first time and was treated to a high room, near the elevator, with a nice view of the strip. I’m not normally one to sit by a window and look at the view, but it was nice. I was more happy to be by the elevator.

Walking into the room I saw one of my favorite features in the suite – the Master Light Switch. This controls lights in the bathroom, sleeping and living areas. It just lessens the amount of lights to turn off/on. This is a big room! Not a big deal, but it’s nice to have.

I had the same type of suite as I did in December so I didn’t take many pictures. You can look at the old flickr gallery to see more. Having said that, into the bathroom we go. There was a powerful shower and tub to the left.

The water closet (toilet) is to the right of the bathroom. I don’t love the high throne and hate that the door automatically slams shut. I was not sticking my foot in the picture so you could see the toilet. 🙂

The bathroom is huge and set up very nicely. The only negative is that the water closet door slams shut.

Next up is the sleeping area with huge 42″ HDTV and cool underlit dresser. Bottle of water not included.

The sleeping area also has a big, comfortable chair to relax and watch TV from.

• In response to a question about what Harrah’s property is most profitable, he said its highest return on investment normally occurs at properties most often considered low-end entries, such as Harrah’s on the Strip and Imperial Palace.

I haven’t thought about the ROI of each casino property, but this makes sense.

While these aren’t the properties with all the big ticket items, they always seem to have steady traffic and don’t need much high dollar investment. For example, you’ll never see Kim Karshian getting paid $200,000, or whatever, to hang at IP where she, and others like her, will get big money to appear at Caesars for an event.

Recently I learned that Human Nature is doing bang up business at Imperial Palace – selling 85% of tickets to their show. I’m not much for shows when I’m in Vegas and I don’t know who would pay for that, but go on with your bad selves!

I always went by the assumption that a comp room meant that the room was free. After all, one of the definitions for “complimentary” is free. Maybe there would be taxes, but that isn’t always the case. On my last trip to Las Vegas I found that comps aren’t treated the same at all casinos.

PALAZZO – MANDATORY RESORT FEE

I had 3 complimentary nights at Palazzo and one that I would pay for. While checking in the prices were $0/$0/$0/$149. I forgot about those damn mandatory resort fees. Palazzo has a $15 resort fee per day which is taxed for a total of $16.80. I didn’t expect that comp rooms would have this tacked on to the bill so I was a surprised when I checked out.

Here’s what I go for my $16.80:

In-room internet access

unlimited local calls

domestic long distance and 800 calls

fitness center access for two

daily local newspaper (I didn’t even see a newspaper)

Here’s what I used:

In-room internet access

I didn’t like the fact that the resort fee was never mentioned at check in. Thinking back, it was never mentioned when I stayed at Palazzo in December. There’s enough free wi-fi in the hotel that I would not have chosen to pay for the service. Over the stay these fees were almost $80.

A cynic might also think that the reason there was such poor cell phone service in the rooms is so that it would force guests to use the house phones for calls and wi-fi for mobile data service so they think that they’re getting something from the resort fees.

PLANET HOLLYWOOD – NO RESORT FEES

I also had a comp night at Planet Hollywood. Harrah’s properties are proud not to have resort fees. I was happy not to pay a resort fee nor tax for my complimentary night at Planet Hollywood. Total bill from Planet Hollywood = $0.

BOTTOM LINE

I had 3 comp nights at Palazzo, a hotel I really like, so I’m not sweating it. At the same time, I feel my opinion is changing from moderately not liking resort fees to strongly not liking resort fees. Additionally, there should be full disclosure of these fees at check in.

On another note, his attitude towards creating beautiful and quality hotels is fantastic. I love the line “I don’t think bigger is better. I think better is better.” I’d rather focus on that attitude than the corporate gibberish.

I know I’ll miss some things from my trip to Las Vegas last week so I’m compiling a list of quick hits so I don’t forget some of the minor details that may interest.

BNBLV– Awesome. Beer and Blogs Las Vegas is a gathering over beer with bloggers, tech heads and nerds. I met a bunch of people I follow on twitter and met some new faces. I expected to be at the happy hour for 30-60 minutes and I was there for 4 hours. Good times. Nice to meet y’all!

Orleans – File under a place I no longer need to visit. Very similar to Gold Coast, but slightly more depressing. Low ceilings and smoke don’t help. Unless I’m in the area (which I doubt) I don’t see myself visiting again.

Free Shuttles – Orleans has a shuttle to Bills on the strip. This was a bus of drunks, but it saved another $20 (or so) cab ride.

Tourists – I don’t like them. They move slowly and/or stop abruptly constantly being in the way. The Las Vegas strip is full of these people and they ruin the experience. I recommend walking on the CityCenter (west?) side of the strip if you need to get from one place to the other. You can throw old people in here too. Ludacris mirrors my thoughts here.

Strip walking – I haven’t walked the strip in a while, but I did twice last weekend. The walks were great, but made worse by tourists and old people. I did find one way to make the strip walk enjoyable. Stop at each casino and either tweet or drink. It breaks up the monotony. Sure it took me about 30 minutes to get from Palazzo to Planet Hollywood, but at least I had fun. That was better than my drunk strip walk the previous night from Bills to Palazzo.

Go-Go dancing in casinos – No longer cool or interesting. This doesn’t work for all casinos. Check Mandalay Bay and Excalibur for reference.

Lucky @ O’Sheas – Little man has great pipes. He was outside of O’Sheas shouting out facebook and twitter offers with a deep booming voice. He fit O’Sheas marketing image perfectly.

Flamingo – Low ceilings still give it an old feel, but it seemed as if there were a bunch of updates in the casino that gave the look a bit of a modern feel. In my quick walk through it seemed as if the casino was caught between their history and being current.

Aria Tram – I don’t like heights. The tram platform is bordered with glass which gives it an edgeless look. It probably looks cool to many, but I don’t like this at all. I don’t like heights and between the station shaking and the feeling like can fall off at any moment I won’t go up there again. I’ll just walk.

Celebrity Sightings – One morning I saw Joan Rivers leaving the Palazzo. That was awesome. Later that night I was playing blackjack at Palazzo and saw Brad Garrett across the way. He’s the brother in “Everybody Loves Raymond”

Palms, Hard Rock, Bellagio – All places I normally make it a priority to visit. Since I was alone I decided to visit places that I don’t normally visit – for better and worse.

The rest of my trip will be delivered in separate posts with pictures. These are items that are small and I didn’t want to leave out.